The effects of age and focality on delay-execute prospective memory

Abstract

ABSTRACT In everyday prospective remembering, individuals must often delay the execution of a retrieved intention until they are in the appropriate setting. These so-called ‘delay-execute’ tasks are particularly troublesome for older adults, who consistently demonstrate impaired performance in this kind of laboratory task. To better understand this effect, we investigated delay-execute prospective memory performance in younger and older adults. Specifically, we examined the strategies individuals used to maintain intentions over a delay period by analyzing response times to the ongoing task, both before and after the cue event. The results suggest that younger and older individuals perform the task similarly by rehearsing or reformulating the intention. Despite performing the task in a similar manner, older adults showed greater impairments in delay-execute prospective remembering.